The Conversation is Rigged
Can you see the problem?
Here’s a clue:
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum...."
- Noam Chomsky
This is not a conversation. It’s a psyop.
We found that supportive family environments and hormone replacement therapy that affirms a transgender child’s gender identity decrease their risk of suicide or running away from home, whereas unsupportive family environments and conversion therapy that denies their gender identity increase these risks.
More later, but you can explore some other perspectives here and here.
Only a handful of studies examine the relationship between cross-sex hormone treatments and suicide risks that compare outcomes for teenagers who received such care to those who sought it but did not receive it. No study uses a causal research design, such as a randomized controlled trial, which is typically required for approving drugs. Instead, many of these studies compare minors who received interventions to those who were unable to get them and find lower rates of contemplating suicide.
There are many defects in this research. First, these studies rely upon surveys of trans-identifying adults recruited from trans support and advocacy groups, so they are not representative of all people who have experienced gender dysphoria as adolescents. In particular, these studies are less likely to include people who resolved these issues without medical intervention and people who had regret about receiving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
In addition, comparing of people who sought and received puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones with those unable to receive them doesn’t give the full picture. One of the requirements for receiving these interventions is being labeled as psychologically stable. So the fact that, suicidal ideation is higher among people who tried but could not get these drugs may be the result of their being disqualified because they were psychologically unstable when they sought them. And existing studies make no effort to control for prior mental health conditions.
We need better conversations.
If you play close attention, you will see that this conversation is about getting “unsupportive” family members out of the way.
Phenomenal article! I work with a number of transgender people in my department. A few of them are on HRT and they experience a number of horrific side effects, mood swings, anger, depression, confusion, headaches, body aches, nausea, paranoia. The list goes on and on. These youngsters are half my age. They call out sick at least few times a month because of their health problems. Mentally, physically psychologically they are in a world of hurt.